I Can Name That Tune in One Letter (Meme)

ctate gave me the letter Y and memed me to name my favorite ten songs beginning with that letter. Y, oh y, did it have to be y.

The problem with Y is not that there aren't enough songs, but that there are so very many very bad songs. Bad in every way that songs can be bad.

Sappy songs: "You Light Up My Life", Debbie Gibson.

Campy songs: "YMCA", Village People

Silly songs: "Yes, We Have No Bananas", Benny Goodman / Spike Jones / etc.

Satirical songs: "Yoda", Weird Al Yankovic

So, sifting through the dross, here are my top 10 Y-songs of all time.

First, the true classics:

1. Yesterday, The Beatles. Suddenly, I'm not half the man I used to be / There's a shadow hanging over me. This one's a legitimate nominee for "best pop ballad ever". I'm rather fond of the Ray Charles cover, too.
   
2. You Can't Always Get What You Want, The Rolling Stones. But if you try sometime / You just might find / You get what you need. Perhaps my favorite Stones song.
   
3. You Really Got Me, The Kinks. See, don't ever set me free. Irresistable rhythm, which is why it's been used in 497 commercials.
   
4. Your Latest Trick, Dire Straits. You played robbery with insolence, and I played the blues in 12 bars.... That second side of Brothers in Arms was DJ heaven, wasn't it?
   
5. You Don't Own Me, Lesley Gore. You don't own me / I'm not just one of your many toys.... Wow, so far ahead of its time that it's scary. The same little girl who sang "It's my party, and I'll cry if I want to" did this?
   
6. You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch, Thurl Ravenscroft. Your brain is full of spiders / You've got garlic in your soul.... Not merely a great song, but a perfect match to the Dr. Suess story (way to go, Albert Hague) and the perfect voice to perform it. Requiescat in pace, Thurl. I've never heard the Rockapella version, but it might be good.
   

After that, it's a grab bag of decent pop songs. The four I decided to go with are:

7. You Really Got a Hold On Me, Smokey Robinson.
   
8. You Can't Hurry Love, The Supremes.
   
9. Yakety Yak, The Coasters.
   
10. You are the Sunshine of My Life, Stevie Wonder.
    

If I can stretch the definition of "begins with Y", I'd probably take (Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher in lieu of, say, Yakety Yak. The very best version of that I've ever heard was on the Spike Lee public TV special "Spike and Friends Do It A Capella" (1990), and was performed by The Mint Juleps.

I don't think Y can stretch far enough to include U Can’t Touch This, M.C. Hammer, and I'm not sure it should.

Honorable mentions (alphabetically), mostly merely tolerably pleasant:

• Year of the Cat, Al Stewart
  
• You Are So Beautiful, Joe Cocker
  
• You Can Call Me Al, Paul Simon
  
• You Can’t Rollerskate in a Buffalo Herd, Roger Miller
  
• Young Girl, Gary Puckett and the Union Gap
  
• Your Momma Don’t Dance, Kenny Loggins
  
• Your Own Special Way, Genesis
  
• Your Smiling Face, James Taylor
  
• You’re Sixteen, Johnny Burnette
  
• You’re So Vain, Carly Simon
  
• You’re the Inspiration, Chicago
  
• You’ve Got a Friend, James Taylor
  
• You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away, The Beatles
  
• You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling, the Righteous Brothers
  
• You’ve Made Me So Very Happy, Blood Sweat and Tears